VIEWPOINT / HYPOCRISY, HYPERBOLE, AND ABSURDITY

By Timothy Weaver, Ph.D.

Has it occurred to you that many Representatives who voted to open an impeachment inquiry against Hunter, formally, err, Joe Biden, have drug-addicted family members who have broken numerous laws? The hypocrisy of this inquiry is world-class. How can a congressman or woman with an addicted brother, husband, son, or daughter in serious trouble with the law vote to impeach Joe Biden for crimes his son is charged with committing? Is it my imagination, or do politicians today have an extraordinarily high tolerance for pain caused by their votes and even higher forbearance for their hypocrisy? There are any number of Senators and Congresspersons who could be impeached for the criminal actions of a family member. No proof is needed of involvement—just association.

Has there been a change in hypocrisy, hyperbole, and absurdity? I sense politicians, especially on the right, have abandoned even the gossamer standards of Washington when it comes to blatant lying. Consider Lindsay Graham, a veteran of the Liars’ Club. Is he worse today? The example I’m thinking of is Hunter Biden, who stated at his press conference, “My father was not financially involved in my business.” Lindsay Graham, commenting on Hunter Biden’s press conference, says: “But … the narrative that Hunter Biden presented is falling apart. The idea that Joe Biden knew nothing about the business dealings is falling apart.” What? Hunter Biden did not say his father knew nothing of his business dealings. He said his father was not financially involved. Does Lindsay feel this arrogant and superior to the people reading this stuff? Does he think no one notices? Yeah, he does.

OK, granted, it was motor mouth Lindsay Graham. It is foolhardy to take anything out of his mouth seriously, but I post this to reveal the inevitable way Republican politicians have come to toss truth out the window in such a clever, if craven, manner.

Or take the case of Chris Christy’s recent statement that Trump should be eligible to run for the Presidency no matter his crime. Even though Trump engaged in an insurrection, Christy wants the voters to decide. He is famous for applying logic only when it suits him. This absurd notion would mean a mass murderer would be electable to the highest office in the land if he committed those murders while President. According to this logic, even the candidate’s death would not be a disqualification. Only the people should decide. And what’s with this guffaw-worthy scheme to take away the power of the states to qualify candidates for their ballots and give it to the US Supreme Court? Ironically, the great champions of state’s rights are pushing this nonsense in the Senate.

The Republicans have perfected fake outrage and victimhood into a high art form. All you must do to see through all this is to imagine Biden was disqualified from the Colorado ballot. Am I becoming jaded, or is this stuff ever more predictable and disgusting? Take away cable news and the internet, and we could return to reading about politics in the Post or listening to 15 minutes of Walter Cronkite.

THE ABSURDITY OF IT ALL.

Now we see Ty Cobb (remember him?) predicting Trump will prevail at the Supreme Court in his appeal of the Colorado ruling barring him from the Colorado primary ballot. He argues that the writers of the 14th Amendment exempted the President. That means they must have been okay with Jefferson Davis running for president rather than spending two years in a Virginia prison after being convicted of treason.

In what logical world could SCOTUS hold that a man now found by two courts in Colorado and by the Secretary of the State of Maine to have led an insurrection (once called treason) be eligible to serve a term in the White House? Holding, as Cobb and others do, that “official of the United States” excludes the President means the President is quite literally a king. If he is not an elected official, he must be something else–king, emperor, ruler, what? What is he, if not an official of the US?

The following absurdity is that the writers of the 14th Amendment intended to exempt the highest and most important official of the US government, no matter his involvement in the insurrection. He might have gone to the Capitol and shot several Congressmen or women. That would have been fine with the writers of the 14th. No biggie. He is still exempt. No sixth grader would accept this logic. Will SCOTUS? They are big on history as a guide to their rulings. History seems clear–no one who would turn on the US Constitution, having taken an oath to uphold it, will ever be allowed to run for high office, especially the Office of the President.

THE AMAZING NEWS NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Yes, talking heads are blabbing about whether Trump is covered under the 14th Amendment as an “official” of government, although the President is not enumerated in the language of the Amendment. That is for lawyers and historical linguists to debate. The un-talked-about news is the lower court’s finding in Colorado that Trump led an insurrection to disrupt the counting and certification of electoral ballots in the US Capitol. Try to digest that for a minute. Hearing the plaintiff’s facts and the defense’s rebuttal evidence, Colorado Justices at the Appellate level, and reaffirmed at the State Supreme Court, found that Trump had committed these acts, which constituted insurrection and disruption of an official function of Congress in certifying the vote of the Electoral College.

That is HUGE. But the Republicans have drowned out the factual finding by attacking the court and the ruling on the 14th Amendment as wrong. This, dear readers, requires high hypocrisy and belief in absurdity. It is old fashion lying by omission. Trump is not an insurrectionist! He DID NOT attempt to disrupt the Congressional certification of the election. The fake electors were a legitimate part of the Electoral College process. NO ONE died at the Capitol on or after January 6. Trump DID NOT refuse to take any action other than eating during the attack on the Capitol. Numerous poll workers across the country DID count fake ballots. Ballot counting machines DID change Trump’s votes to Biden’s votes. This strikes me as a new level of hypocrisy, hyperbole, and absurdity.

IT IS NOT SOLEY THE ELECTION LIES WE MUST SWALLOW

We must buy that the Constitution contains no language about abortion, whether for or against it. At the same time, we must buy the logic that the State of Texas can bring a case before the US Supreme Court, asking them to find a constitutional reason for banning Mifepristone. Hmm. How does that work?

I thought the Supremes just held in Dobbs that the US Constitution does not speak in any way about abortions and conveys no right to an abortion or its opposite, i.e., does not prohibit abortions. Thus, the Constitution is silent on its procedures and any medical care about it. It is strictly a matter for the states: Alito and his colleagues insisted on returning the authority “to the people and their elected representatives.” The US Constitution does not provide a right for abortions, nor a right to the states to prevent them. States may assume the right to ban abortions, and the Court kicked it back to them, but the US Constitution itself conveys no such right. It is mute. Didn’t Alito make all this abundantly clear?

The only provision the US Constitution makes regarding the assignment of rights is the 10th Amendment. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. On this basis, the Court and Red State AGs are increasingly hanging their hats.

Now, we see state AGs seeking to address abortion rights not in their supreme court but in the US Supreme Court, the Court that just ruled it has nothing to do with abortion or any aspect of it. Access to Mifepristone is a matter for the states to decide. This case is about FDA procedures for approving drugs, but the procedures are for an abortion pill, which the US Supreme Court said is not a Constitutional matter. If the state wants Mifepristone banned, then ban it. The case the State of Texas brought isn’t even about FDA procedures. If it were, there is a long list of FDA procedures Texas may have contested. The mens rea, in this case, should be obvious. Texas could ban the drug’s use in Texas and be done with it. Instead, they seek to ban it in every state because Texas opposes abortions.

As far as I can see, they have no standing in the Supreme Court. The only harm to residents of the state of Texas comes to women seeking an abortion to save their lives (Cox v State of Texas). The Federal court should never have heard the case in the first place. Why doesn’t the government ask for an immediate dismissal on the grounds made clear in Dobbs v Jackson? This is a state matter. What gives?

Hypocrisy, hyperbole, and absurdity. We must believe two contradictory things to give credence to this last example. We must believe that the Constitution is mute on the question of abortion, how to get one, what kinds of procedures are permitted, and whether states can ban them in all their forms. OK? But we MUST also believe that the states can run to the federal courts up to SCOTUS to rule that no other state can do what the plaintiff state seeks to abolish.

That, dear readers, is called an absurdity.

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